Publication series

Name

Musicologies

Publisher

Librairie Vrin

Abstract

Although the music of Milhaud’s formative years has received proper attention from Jeremy Drake, Barbara Kelly, myself and others, the late output is still, generally, much less familiar. Furthermore, Milhaud’s fine, versatile and sizeable chamber repertory may be regarded as a reliable indicator of the best of his wider compositional practice. This situation sets up a challenge for change. Thus this article seeks to position and survey Milhaud’s rich but neglected late chamber music, highlighting particular works. My purpose is to establish whether Milhaud was a non-progressive - even retrogressive - composer whose late works constitute a simple instance of going ‘full circle’, or whether there may be a more subtle process of early-late balancing and re-inflection at work.